In the '70s, the choice to leave off the definitive became more clearly artistically significant. "With punk being a neo-traditional form, returning to the roots of rock 'n' roll, it explains again why we get 'the' names going, along with three-chord progressions and traditional band instrumentations. It shouldn't try and have pretentions more than that," Zimmer said. "It gets revived again with The Strokes and The Killers and The Hives." [...]

"There are 330 different bands that start with 'The B' out of 3,884 bands in my consideration set," Schnoebelen said. "The major takeaway is that [charting] bands that start with 'the' have a striking preference for the next letter to be: b, j, k, m, and z. Meanwhile, bands seem to avoid following the 'the' with a, e, i, p, t, and u.

"The easiest thing to explain is the dislike for vowels -- it's probably an avoidance of what linguists call a 'hiatus'," Schnoebelen continued. "That is, it's lousy to say 'The Eagles' (and a lot easier to pronounce it 'Theagles'). There are exceptions to these patterns, but right now these are the patterns that are popping out as most significant."

12 Responses:

I see this from time to time with bands. Some people name them 'Foo' others 'The Foo'. I always have to go look at the album covers to figure out what the band actually call themselves. When it's fun is when it changes from album to album.

Also, I had the immpression that circus and vaudiville acts (including magicians) had used the definite article quite a bit in the 19th century ("The Great So-and-So"). I suspect that sideshow connotation might have influenced some bands (for example The Residents).